New data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which is making flybys of Pluto in order to gather information about its icy terrain and system of satellites, has revealed additional information about its unique geology and composition, as well as more information about its atmospheric characteristics and their interaction with solar wind. The data release comes shortly after NASA released enhanced color images of the dwarf planet, as HNGN previously reported.
"We're much less than halfway through transmitting data about the Pluto system to Earth, but a wide variety of new scientific results are already emerging," Alan Stern, New Horizons' principal investigator, said in a press release.
Geological findings point to a great deal of glacial activity, both in the past and at the present time, including the formation of vast networks of winding valets.
"Pluto has greatly exceeded our expectations in diversity of landforms and processes-processes that continue to the present," said Alan Howard, who collaborated with the New Horizons' Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team.
Furthermore, mathematical models of thermal convection within the deep layer of solid nitrogen that resides in the Sputnik Planum explain the various polygonal ice features on its surface and also point to the thickness of this layer potentially being as much as a few miles.
In regards to Pluto's unique atmospheric haze, color and phase-angle data have given scientists more to work with in understanding its formation and why it forms into layers.
"Like almost everything on Pluto, the haze is much more complicated than we thought," said Andy Cheng, New Horizons' co-investigator. "But with the excellent New Horizons data currently in hand, we soon expect to have a much better understanding."
The data also provides more information regarding how Pluto and its moons interact with solar wind, a steady stream of particles and plasma that stems from the sun and is currently travelling at a speed of 900,000 miles per hour towards Pluto. Due to Pluto's outflowing atmosphere, it provides neutral atoms that can provide electrons to be exchanged with the positively charged atoms found in the solar wind; these atoms include oxygen, carbon and nitrogen.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is current functioning normally and barreling through space at more than 32,000 miles per hour.
